On this date in 1610, the priest Roger Cadwallador was hanged, drawn, and quartered in Herefordshire, where he had maintained an illicit Catholic ministry for 16 years.

Having spent most of the morning in spiritual preparation (for his end) about ten o’clock he took some corporal food, viz. a little comfortable broth; and calling for a pint of claret wine and sugar, on occasion of a friend that was come to visit him, he made use of the words of bishop Fisher in the like case, as he said, when he was taking a cordial, before the like combat of death; fortitudinem meam ad te domine custodian, Saying in English, he took it to make himself strong to suffer for God. Then as if he had been to go to a feast, he put on his wedding-garment (viz. a new suit of cloaths) which a friend had provided for him, from top to toe, whom he requited with a good and godly exhortation, counselling him to persevere till death in the catholic faith; and giving him directions to bestow twelve pence of his money on the porter; for he kept two shillings in his own pocket to bestow on him that was to lead and drive the horse, when he went to execution.

His jailer pressed him repeatedly, as was usual, to apostasize and save his flesh. The terrors of the gallows being quite real even to martyrs, this menace surely worked for some … but never, it seems for those who reach these grim annals.

Being taken off the hurdle, and brought within sight of the gallows, and the block whereon he was to be quartered, they shewed him these and other instruments of death, leading him between two great fires, the one prepared to burn his heart and bowels, the other to boil his head and quarters: and thinking the sight of these did somewhat terrify him, they promised him once more that none of them should touch him, if he would take the oath; but his christian courage made him persist in his resolution of dying in that quarrel.

Cadwallador would need every drop of that resolution when an artlessly executed hanging unintentionally left him quite sensible to experience the horrors of having his trunk ripped open to tear out organs that would feed those great fires. When “the unskilful executioner”

came to turn the ladder … [Cadwallador] said aloud five or six times, In manus tuas Domine commendo spiritum meum. Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit. And lastly, Domine accipe spiritum meum. Lord receive my spirit. He hunt very long, and in extraordinary pain, by reason that the knot, through the unskilfulness of the hangman, came to be directly under his chin, serving only to pain, and not to dispatch him.

Insomuch that when the people were persuaded that he was thoroughly dead, he put up his hand to the halter, as if he had either meant to shew how his case stood, or else to ease himself: but bethinking himself better, and perhaps a scruple coming into his head to concur to hasten his own death; he had scarce touched the halter, but that he presently pulled away his hand. And within the space of a Pater-noster after, he lifted up his hand again to make the sign of the cross; which made all the standers by much amazed; and some of the vulgar desirous to rid him of his pain, lifted him upwards by the legs twice or thrice, letting him fall again with a swag.

Then after a little rest, when they thought him quite dead, he was cut down: but when he was brought to the block to be quartered, before the bloody butcher could pull off his doublet, he revived and began to breathe; which the multitude perceiving began to murmur; which made the under-sheriff cry out to the executioner to hasten: but before they had stripped him naked he was come to a very perfect breathing.

It was long after they had opened him before they could find his heart, which, notwithstanding, panted in their hands when it was pulled out.

As soon as the head was cut off, one of the sheriff’s men lifted it up on the point of a halbert, expecting the applause of the people, who made no sign that the fact was pleasing to them. Nay, they that were present were struck at the sight, and said, this priest’s behaviour and death would give great confirmation to all the papists of Herefordshire: which saying fell out to be true; for it ministered to them great courage and comfort.

Cadwallador was beatified in 1987.

On this day..

• 1909: Joe Gauvitte, wife-slayer
• 1861: Martin Doyle, the last hanged for attempted murder
• 1858: Peter Williams and Abraham Cox, to the air of Old Ironsides
• 1830: Ebenezer Cox, gone postal gunsmith
• 1870: Charles Harth, Prussian spy
• 1824: Johann Christian Woyzeck, non compos mentis?
• 1853: John Hurley, medicalized
• 1628: Milady de Winter, Three Musketeers villainess
• 1500: 18 thieves in Rome
• 1679: St. David Lewis, the last Welsh martyr
• 30 B.C.E: Caesarion, "Little Caesar"
• 1979: Eleven by a Firing Squad in Iran